Saturday, May 16, 2009

Local 'working class' band rocks Meadowbrook with Korn

It is a pretty classic scene. The Berlin-based band buRne is playing a gig in a bar in Gorham and a brawl breaks out. Pool tables are being flipped. Chairs are flying. The state police show up. And the band just keeps playing.

“Girls are fighting, guys are fighting, state troopers are fighting, they are closing the bar. We didn’t know what to do,” said the band’s lead singer Antly Horne, of Conway. “That was awesome. Interesting, I don’t know about awesome, but it was interesting.”

Last September, in a very different kind of show, the self-described working class band played the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass. with Queensrÿche, Alice Cooper, Dio and Black Sabbath. On May 23 the band will join Korn and 30 other bands at the Meadowbrook U.S. Pavilion in Gilford. Not too shabby for an unsigned band from Berlin.

“We all have jobs outside of this, but this is just something we never let go of,” said Horne. “It is a side lifestyle, is what it is really. We’re playing and writing and trying our best to do what we can and trying to stay unique to other bands and it has been going good so far.”

buRne started out as a two-piece band about seven years, but started getting more serious three years ago —and things been on the rise ever since. The band recently released its self-produced first album, “Surface.”

Horne describes the band’s sound as grunge based, but not “scream-rip-your-head-off music.” The band is not above playing a ballad, and in fact intends on playing one at the Meadowbrook show.

“We weren’t sure we were going to do it because we are playing with all these heavy bands, but you know that’s the sort of stuff that makes us stick out,” said Horne. “We are not afraid to be ourselves, and that’s what we’re going to do be: ourselves. That’s what got us to where we are now and we’re not going to stray away from that.”

Horne says that the band's diverse influences, which include Alice in Chains, Jethro Tull, Dave Matthews and Megadeath, are what keeps the band’s sound unique.

“Everyone puts their own style into it and nobody critiques each other,” said Horne. “You want to do something one way, then do it. That’s what is going to stick out.”

And that’s the theme that keeps surfacing when talking with Horne: Try to find a way to stand out and be original. That’s the same advice he gives to aspiring musicians.

“Everybody starts at the bottom,” said Horne. “Some people are just a little bit more fortunate than others. The chances of making it are slim to none, but if you make it in your own mind that’s all you need. You got to keep that in mind. You don’t have to please anybody but yourself.”

Bands playing the Meadowbrook show must sell tickets using a special unique code in order to climb their way higher on the main stage. Currently buRne is high on that list and hopes to stay there.

For more information about the band visit www.myspace.com/burnethelifestyle.